The Cat Who Came to Breakfast

by Lilian Jackson Braun

  Writing the skit put Qwilleran in a good mood for an evening with the Rikers, and shortly before eight o’clock he called for a carriage and picked them up at their bed-and-breakfast.

  “How do you like the Island Experience?” he asked.

  “It’s a dream!” Mildred exclaimed. “The innkeepers are positively charming!”

  “But their rates are atrocious!” Arch said. “Do you know what we’re paying for that suite you reserved? There’s only one other guest registered; that should tell you something.”

  “But the decor is exquisite,” Mildred insisted, “and there’s a lovely arrangement of fresh flowers in our suite. Pink carnations and snapdragons.”

  “Frankly, I think those two women are just going through the motions of innkeeping,” her husband said. “They take the inn as a loss for tax purposes, while they spend the summer getting sloshed in the gazebo.”

  “Yes, they do seem to imbibe quite a bit,” said Mildred, who was on the wagon. “Oh! Isn’t that a hideous building!” she added as the carriage passed the Domino Inn.

  “But it’s popular,” Qwilleran said.

  “Because the prices are right; that’s why,” Riker snapped.

  At the hotel they pushed through a phalanx of pickets, tourists, and stray cats. Mildred said it was a mess. In the lobby she said the black flags were too somber. Then she caught sight of Derek Cuttlebrink at the reservation desk. She had taught him in high school and had applauded him in Pickax theater productions. “Derek! What are you doing here?” she cried.

  “I’m playing Captain Hook this week. Next week, King Kong.” With a flourish he assigned them to a choice booth in the Corsair Room. Unobtrusively he slipped a scrap of paper to Qwilleran, who dropped it in his pocket.

  The three old friends had much to talk about after being apart for a whole week: the shooting on the sand dune, the mosquito controversy, and ordinary newspaper shoptalk. Then Riker asked Qwilleran, “Do you consider this boondoggle of yours worthwhile? You’re not jamming the fax machine with copy.”

  “Did you come over here to check up on your hired help?” Qwilleran retorted.

  “The paper is paying for your junket, don’t forget.”

  “Well,” Qwilleran began cagily, since Riker was not aware of his real mission, “I have a lot of notes and tapes, but I need time to organize them. I’ve discovered, for example, that Pear Island is not pear-shaped. It may have been pear-shaped when it was surveyed a couple of centuries ago, but erosion has changed it to an isosceles triangle.”

  “That’s a world-shaking discovery,” the publisher said dryly. “Let’s see you write a thousand words on that profound subject. Do you recommend changing the name again? It’ll sound like a Greek island.”

  The entrées were served. Qwilleran had recommended the Cajun menu, and all three had ordered pork chops étouffée.

  “Why, these are nothing but smothered pork chops, highly seasoned,” Riker said. “Mildred fixes these all the time. How much are they paying this New Orleans chef?”

  When they settled down to serious eating, Qwilleran told them the story behind the story of the snake-bite incident, with hitherto unrevealed descriptions, reactions, apprehensions, and conclusions. “First aid was the only merit badge I ever earned in scouting, and it finally paid off,” he said.

  Mildred was thrilled. Even Riker was impressed and wanted to know why the facts had been withheld from the newspaper. “It would have made a great feature: everybody’s favorite columnist rescuing an heiress.”

  “There may be more to the story. They’re an unusual family, and I’m invited to tea tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Speaking of tea,” Mildred said, “have you been to the tea room? They serve real tea in fat English teapots with thin porcelain cups and all the shortbread you can eat.”

  Her husband said, “Qwill and I had enough shortbread in Scotland to last a lifetime. It hardly strikes me as tourist fare in this country. They certainly weren’t doing any business when we were there.”

  “Did you go into the antique shop?” Qwilleran asked.

  “Yes, and we recognized the woman who runs it,” said Mildred. “She’s staying at the Island Experience. We saw her in the breakfast room this morning, but she was rather aloof.”

  “No wonder the prices in her shop are so high,” Riker said. “She has to pay for that suite with fresh flowers and champagne. Moreover, her inventory is questionable. She has some reproductions of Depression glass that she represents as the real thing. There’s a lot of fraud these days in scrimshaw and netsuke and pre-Columbian figures. Is she uninformed or deliberately falsifying?”

  “How would Exbridge react to this information?” Qwilleran asked. “He seems to run a tight ship.”

  “Well, I’m not going to be the one to tell him. He’s been hard to get along with lately. Thinks he can tell us how to run the paper.”

  Over dessert—the inevitable pecan pie—Mildred asked about the Siamese.

  “Koko is learning to play dominoes,” Qwilleran said, “and he beats me every time.”

  “That shouldn’t be hard to do,” Riker said gleefully.

  “What do you think of the feral cats on the island?”

  Mildred was an activist in humanitarian causes, and she said vehemently, “There are too many! Overpopulation is inhumane. To maintain a healthy cat colony in an area like this, they should be trapped, neutered, and released—the way we’re doing on the mainland.”

  Riker said, “Our editorials finally convinced the bureaucrats it’s not only humane but cheaper in the long run than wholesale killing.”

  Qwilleran, who liked to stir things up, made a sly suggestion. “Why don’t you send a reporter over here to discuss feral cats with vacationers, businesspeople, and the chief honcho himself? You could get some good photos.”

  “Don’t assign my son-in-law,” said Mildred. “Roger will break out in a rash even before the ferry docks.”

  After dinner, riding up the beach road in a carriage, Qwilleran announced that he was staying at the “hideous” inn to save the newspaper money. Then he had the driver wait a few minutes while he showed the Rikers the four tree trunks in the lounge and the cottage on Pip Court.

  “Don’t you get claustrophobia?” Riker asked.

  The Siamese and Mildred indulged in a display of mutual affection (she had been their cat sitter once for two weeks) and then she said excitedly, “Where did you get those?” She pointed to the gilded leather masks.

  “They were a birthday present,” Qwilleran said, thinking it better not to tell the truth. “Do you know anything about that kind of work? They’re leather.”

  “Yes, I know,” she said. “It’s an old Venetian craft that’s been revived by a young artist down south. She does excellent work.”

  Then the Rikers drove back to their B-and-B. Everyone had enjoyed the evening: the usual joshing, frank talk, and exchange of news. To Qwilleran the news about Noisette confirmed his suspicion that she was an impostor. Why was she on the island? He sat on the porch and listened to June Halliburton playing jazz. She had a male visitor again. The voice sounded younger.

  The Siamese sat with him; they were friends again.

  Before going to dinner he had bitten the bullet and given them a can of red salmon. The partying next door was still going on when he retired. It was not until he emptied his pockets that he remembered the scrap of paper from Derek. It was a one-word message: Gumbo. Later, after his lights were out, he heard good nights being said next door, and the beam of a flashlight preceded the departing guest—not to the nature trail but up Pip Court. The tall, lanky scarecrow of a figure was that of Derek Cuttlebrink.

  The arrival of two more pounds of meatloaf on Sunday morning steeled Qwilleran’s determination, and the standoff between man and cats resumed. “Take it or leave it,” he said. They left it.

  Sunday was the turning point, however, in Qwilleran’s floundering mission. He took tea with the Appelhardts; his undercover
agent made his first report; Lyle Compton presented his program on Scotland at the hotel; and Yum Yum found something among the sofa cushions.

  While Qwilleran was dressing for breakfast, he heard the musical murmuring that meant Yum Yum was digging a rusty nail out of a crevice, or trying to open a desk drawer, or retrieving a lost toy. She was on the seat of the sofa, thrusting first one paw and then the other behind a cushion. As the mumblings and fumblings became frantic, he went to her aid. As soon as he removed the seat cushion, she pounced on a half-crumpled piece of paper and carried it to the porch in her jaws, to be batted around for a few seconds and then forgotten.

  It looked like a piece of music manuscript paper, and he picked it up.

  “N-n-now!” she wailed, seeing her prize confiscated.

  “N-n-no!” He retorted.

  Offended by the mockery, Yum Yum went into a corner and sat with her back toward him.

  “Sorry, sweetheart. I won’t say that again,” he apologized.

  She ignored him.

  Smoothing the scrap of paper, he found a phone number. The first three digits identified it as a local number—not the cab stand and not the hotel, both of which he would recognize. The style of the numerals had an affectation that he would associate with June Halliburton, and the type of paper confirmed his guess. Obviously she had dropped it while occupying the cottage. Then the question arose: Whom would she be phoning on the island? It was none of his business, but, still, it would be interesting to know. He could call the number and then hang up—or ask to speak to Ronald Frobnitz.

  The first time he tried it—when he went to the inn for breakfast—the line was busy. After corned beef hash with a poached egg, plus hominy grits with sausage gravy (Lori was running out of ideas, he thought), he called the number again. It rang several times, and then a gruff voice answered: “The Pines gatehouse.”

  “Sorry. Wrong number,” he said. Why June would be phoning the Appelhardt gatehouse was a question even more puzzling than why she would be making an island call at all. There was a possibility, of course, that he had punched the wrong digits. He tried again and heard the same voice saying, “The Pines gatehouse.” This time he hung up without apology.

  Qwilleran spent some time that day in deciding what to wear to tea. The role he was playing was not that of an inquiring reporter, nor Sherlock Holmes in disguise, nor a commoner being patronized by the royal family. He was playing a hero who had saved the life (probably) of an only daughter. Furthermore, while Elizabeth was an heiress, he himself was the Klingenschoen heir, and the K Foundation was capable of buying The Pines and the entire Grand Island Club and restoring it to a wildlife refuge. The idea appealed to him. He would not wear his silk shirt nor even his blue chambray that screamed “designer shirt”—another gift from Polly. No, he would wear his madras plaid that looked as if it had been washed in the Ganges for twenty years and beaten with stones to a muddy elegance.

  In this shirt and some British-looking, almost-white, linen pants, he went out to meet the carriage that was picking him up at four o’clock. The conveyance that pulled up to the carriage block in front of the inn caused a murmur of admiration among the guests on the porch. A glossy-coated horse, quite unlike the nags pulling cabs-for-hire, was harnessed to a handsome buggy of varnished wood and leather.

  The driver in green livery with an apple logo stepped down and said, “Mr. Qwillum, sir?” He pointed to the passenger seat on the left, then sprang nimbly into the seat behind the reins. He was a young version of the gaunt old islanders who drove the hacks.

  As the carriage started up West Beach Road, Qwilleran remarked that it was a nice day.

  “Ay-uh,” said the driver.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Henry.”

  “Nice horse.”

  “Ay-uh.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Skip.”

  “Do you think we’ll have any rain?” It was a brilliant day, with not a cloud in the sky.

  “Might.”

  At The Pines, the carriage rolled through an open gate and past a gatehouse of considerable size, then to the rear of the main lodge. It stopped at a carriage block on the edge of a stone-paved courtyard. Beyond were acres of flawless lawn, a swimming pool with a high-dive board, and a croquet green, where white-clad youths were screaming epithets and swinging mallets at each other. In the foreground was a grassy terrace with verdigris iron furniture and a scattering of adults in the same croquet white. They looked clinical, compared to Qwilleran’s mellow nonwhiteness.

  One of the men came forward toward him. “Mr. Qwilleran? I’m Elizabeth’s brother, Richard. We met last Thursday for about three seconds. We’re grateful for your help in the emergency.”

  “I’m grateful there was a doctor in the house,” Qwilleran replied pleasantly. “How is the patient?”

  “Right over there, waiting to thank you personally.” He waved a hand toward a chaise longue, where a young woman reclined. She wore a flowing garment of some rusty hue, and long, dark hair cascaded over her shoulders. She was looking eagerly in their direction.

  The two men started toward her but were intercepted by an older woman—buxom, regally handsome, and dramatically poised like an opera diva on stage. Gliding forward with outstretched hand, she said in a powerful contralto, “Mr. Qwilleran, I’m Rowena Appelhardt. Welcome to The Pines.”

  “My pleasure,” he murmured courteously but cooly. As a journalist Down Below and abroad, he had been everywhere and seen everything, and he was not awed by the vastness of the estate. Rather, it seemed to be the Appelhardts who were awed. Had they made a quick background check and discovered his Klingenschoen connection and bachelor status? He became warily reserved.

  The matriarch introduced the family: Richard was genuinely cordial; William smiled continually and was eager to talk; their wives sparkled with friendliness. Qwilleran suspected the queen mother had briefed them. She herself was an effusive hostess. Only Jack hung back, his face handsome in a bored and dissipated way. Finally there was the undernourished, unmarried daughter. She made a move to rise from her chaise.

  “Stay where you are, Elizabeth,” her mother admonished. “You must avoid exertion.”

  “Mother—” Richard began, but she stopped him with a glance.

  Soulfully, the patient said, “I’m so grateful to you, Mr. Qwilleran.” She extended her left hand; her right wrist was bandaged. “What would have happened to me if you hadn’t been there?”

  She had that loving look that women are said to bestow on their rescuers, and he kept his tone brusquely impersonal. “Fortunate coincidence, Ms. Appelhardt,” he said.

  “It was karma. And please call me Elizabeth. I don’t remember what happened after that frightening moment.”

  “You were only minutes away from home; your brother was waiting with the golf cart; and you were choppered off the island by the Moose County sheriff.”

  “I love your shirt,” she said, scoring several points.

  Tea was served, and the conversation became general. The servers were two young men in green seersucker coats—island types but meticulously trained. There was tea with milk or lemon, and there was pound cake. This was no garden party with peacocks and memorable refreshments; this was a simple family tea with seven adult Appelhardts, while the younger members of the family squabbled on the croquet court.

  “Richard,” came the deep voice of authority, “must my grandchildren behave like savages while we are having tea with a distinguished visitor?”

  Her son sent one of the seersucker coats to the croquet green, and the fracas ended abruptly.

  “Do you play croquet, Mr. Qwilleran?” she asked.

  Mallets, wire wickets, and wooden balls interested him as much as dominoes. “No, but I’m curious about the game. What is the major attraction?”

  “Bonking,” said Jack, entering the conversation for the first time. “It’s more than a matter of knocking a ball through a wicket. You hit yo
ur ball so that it sends your opponent’s ball off the field. That’s bonking. It takes practice. You can also bop your ball over your opponent’s ball, blocking his path to the wicket.”

  “Jack is a sadistic bonker,” said William’s wife as if it were a compliment.

  “It’s changed from a harmless pastime to a strategic sport,” William said. “It requires deliberation, like chess, but you’re limited to forty-five seconds to make a shot.”

  Richard talked fondly about his Jack Russells, three well-behaved dogs who mingled with the family and never barked, jumped, or sniffed.

  Mrs. Appelhardt asked prying questions, skillfully disguised, about Qwilleran’s career, lifestyle, and hobbies, which he answered with equally skillful evasion.

  Elizabeth was quiet but looked at him all the time.

  Then William said, “How did you like that carriage we sent for you? My hobby is restoring antique vehicles.”

  “It’s a beauty!” Qwilleran said in all honesty.

  “It’s Elizabeth’s favorite—a physician’s phaeton, so-called because of the hood design. It’s deeper and has side panels, the idea being that physicians had to call on patients in all kinds of weather. In fact, this type of vehicle became the badge of the profession, along with the little black leather bag.”

  “How many carriages have you restored?”

  “About two dozen. Most are at our farm in Illinois. There are five here. Would you like to see them?” To his mother, William said, “Do you mind if I show Mr. Qwilleran the carriage barn?”

  “Don’t keep him away from us too long!” she cautioned with a coy smile. The corners of her mouth turned down when she smiled, making emotion ambiguous.